Confessions of a BJP Supporter

Glen #137

This is outrageous!! We should form an ``Overseas Friends of India Democracy`` to counter their claims ... I am sure most well known (real) Indian American intellectuals would join - make Bill Clinton an honorary member too.

tahmed321, temporal, Banjaraa and the ``silent majority``

thanks ... don`t know if it makes it easier or harder to know of people like you ... sometimes it is easier to see the world in black and white ... but some of us can`t help looking for other colours, pity all we find nowadays is grey ...

Prem, Zafar Al-Talib, Roohi, Tahmed, hamidm, Urstruly, YLH, SaminaShah, PM

Death of ``Benevolent`` Scholar or TRUTH and METHOD

From NYT dtd Mar 19, 2002 -

``The Last Sociologist

By ORLANDO PATTERSON

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — ``The Lonely Crowd,`` the book for which David Riesman is best known, was published more than half a century ago. It remains not only the best-selling book by a professional sociologist in American history, but arguably one that has had the widest influence on the nation at large. The work of Mr. Riesman, who died May 10, inevitably raises questions about the claims and limitations of academic sociology today.

In ``The Lonely Crowd`` and other works, Mr. Riesman provided middle-class Americans with a sharply focused view of their major cultural preoccupations. Then as now, Americans were concerned about the threat to personal freedom posed by the conformism and homogeneity inherent in mass-consumption society. They longed for connection in their pursuit of suburban affluence. They struggled with the contradictory tendency of capitalist individualism to undermine other forms of individualism through a ruthless ``ethic of callousness`` and celebration of greed. And they tried to reconcile their autonomy with genuine compassion.

He also gave the nation a vocabulary for the discussion of what his graceful prose had seduced them to gaze at. In ``The Lonely Crowd,`` he analyzed the anxieties of American life, identifying the ways in which individuals and groups responded to the fast-changing postwar culture.

And yet David Riesman died discarded and forgotten by his discipline. Even Harvard`s department of sociology, which he had served for over 30 years, recently discontinued a lecture series named for him after only two years. I gave the last David Riesman lecture in October 2000. It was, I think, the last public event David attended, and he was very happy about it. As he was my mentor, so was I.

The dishonoring of David Riesman, and the tradition of sociology for which he stood, is not a reflection of their insignificance. It is merely a sign of the rise in professional sociology of a style of scholarship that mimics the methodology and language of the natural sciences — in spite of their inappropriateness for the understanding of most areas of the social world.

Anxious to achieve the status of economics and the other ``soft sciences,`` the gatekeepers of sociology have insisted on a style of research and thinking that focuses on the testing of hypotheses based on data generated by measurements presumed to be valid. This approach works reasonably well for the study of certain subjects like demographics in which there is stability in the variables studied. Business schools, for example, have increasingly turned to organizational sociologists for a more realistic interpretation of the behavior of firms than that provided by economists.

Unfortunately, for most areas of social life — especially those areas in which the general public is interested — the methods of natural science are not only inappropriate but distorting. (It is important to note here that the issue is not the use of statistics. Mr. Riesman encouraged their use where appropriate.)

Americans tend to be highly skeptical of generalizations of social interaction. Yet they are deeply interested in knowing what is distinctive about their patterns of behavior, beliefs and values. They welcome attempts to understand what forces in society influence them to act the way they do. Another great sociologist and a contemporary of Mr. Riesman, Erving Goffman, gave them just that in books like ``The Sociology of Everyday Life.``

These two scholars — and others like C. Wright Mills, William F. Whyte, Daniel Bell, Nathan Glazer and Peter Berger — practiced a sociology different in both style and substance from that of today. It was driven first by the significance of the subject and second by an epistemological emphasis on understanding the nature and meaning of social behavior. This is an understanding that can only emerge from the interplay of the author`s own views with those of the people being studied.

These writers, following an earlier tradition, pursued big issues like the cultural contradictions of capitalism, the role of religion in economic life, the problems of America`s melting-pot ideology, the nature of civil society and the virtues and dangers of patriotism. But they also painted on small canvases, offering us insights into American rituals of interaction in public and private places. They wrote about the ways we avoid each other, the ravages of stigma, the search for honor behind the behavior of young men in gangs on street corners. Their ideas became pervasive, entering the language with terms like ``inner-directed,`` ``power elite`` and ``masking techniques.``

Mr. Riesman, in particular, was a pioneer in the study of popular culture, writing brilliantly on the role of the car and of comics. A landmark essay he wrote 50 years ago on youth and pop music was recently reissued in a definitive collection of essential readings on the rock `n` roll revolution. Even in the world of music criticism, Mr. Riesman was considered relevant.

Today, when mainstream sociologists write about culture they disdain as reactionary any attempt to demonstrate how culture explains behavior. And their need to test hypotheses, build models and formulate laws forces them into an emphasis on the organizational aspects of culture, which can be reduced to data suitable for ``scientific`` analysis.

Thus in much of modern sociology one learns little or nothing about literature or art or music or religion, even in sociologies that purport to study these subjects. Mainstream sociology eschews any exploration of human values, meanings and beliefs because ambiguities and judgment are rarely welcomed in the discipline now.

Americans are as eager today for analysis of how they live as they were when Mr. Riesman wrote ``The Lonely Crowd.`` Now as then, they want to be informed (in a language they can understand) about their beliefs and cultural practices.

Since mainstream sociology has abandoned this important mission, the intellectual vacuum has been filled by legions of scholars, mainly from the humanities, and commentators in the press. Most have little insight into social, political or cultural issues. In the academy, they have made a frightening intellectual mess of so-called cultural studies. In the popular culture, Americans who want informed sociological essays and thoughtful reflections turn to literary commentators or, less helpfully, to writers of self-help books or hosts of television talk shows.

Sociology is hardly alone in this pseudo-scientific narrowing of purpose and methods on the nation`s campuses. Many political science departments, for example, have been hijacked by ``rational choice`` theorists who disdain the study of political beliefs and culture. There are occasional hopeful signs pointing in other directions, often in small journals or quarterlies published by academic departments or individuals committed to independent thought.

It is that independence, that confidence in ideas, that is most lacking in the academy now. About this, too, Mr. Riesman had something to say. To participate in public life, as anyone who does so knows, requires something he called ``the nerve of failure`` and defined as ``the courage to face aloneness and the possibility of defeat in one`s personal life or one`s work without being morally destroyed.``

David Riesman had that nerve. Would that more in the academy did.

Orlando Patterson is a professor of sociology at Harvard and author of ``Rituals of Blood,`` the second volume of a trilogy on race relations``

Sadna,

re: MT, Farangi Kush, Progressive

and 12 head plus Anika Zaidi and god news who else

Do you think we should start researching the psychology of cyber interactors who use several nicks? Wouldn`t THAT be interesting? Could you speculate on the possible findings that may emerge?

Why do you use only one nick as I do?

Rsaxena#128;

[...since you are in england, perhaps you can write to the author of this article and ask him how small children, even babies, who muslims burned on that train were `fundamentalists`...if he can`t answer it, tell him to shove that article up his a$$...]

- Why dont you e-mail him and tell him to shove it up his a$$ yourself? Or better still point out his mistake and deal with the substance of the article.

-h-

Reply MT # 117

Hey! I hear Mayawati’s Ambedkar Park is really great. We should meet there sometime and learn more about our community and its leaders. Aren’t you curious to find out if your family has been honoured by name there? I’m certainly curious.

” do not like smelly kurta pajama clad( oh by the way I should add the ones that barely reach ankles), betel chewing , nonsense spouting cretin and their equally silly issues”

Self hate is a terrible thing. Don`t talk about yourself like that. Join me in being proud of our people.

The Indian subcontinent politics in the past revolved around religions, cast and British influences. The Gujarat, Ayodhya, and other communal riots in the country are always going to be related to Kashmir, Muslim Personal Laws and Pakistan support to the separatist movements such as Khalisthan. The people should read and understand the religions and their core philosophies. Free thinker movement is necessary for the survival of India`s hindu-muslim-sikh-isai. Let us educate ourselves by reading the different religious dogmas. I did`t know anything about Islam and christianity until I statrted reading Quran, Bible, hindu mythologies and other religious views on the internet. Please visit, read and understand the problems that religons create on the internet.

http://www.faithfreedom.org/

MT #117
MT sounds more and more like FARANGi_KUSH/progressive or 12-head.

Roohi # 126

temporal is a wordsmith and has expressed it

for the `silent majority` so very lucidly...

``...and mine is not a lonely voice from across...there are many more...why they do not come forward escapes me...``

Dard ki kainaat meiN mujh se bhi roshni rahi

vaisay meri bisaat kya,aik diya bujha huaa

Regards.

temporal # 127

``rau maiN hay rakh-shay umar daikhiyay kahaaN thamay

na haath hay baag pay na paa riqaab main

(hope have quoted the couplet correctly: is this right banjara?)``

Shaayer tau aap hain,kyon kaantoN mein iss ghareeb

banjare ko ghaseet-tay hain.Wazan se saaf zahir hai:)

Rau meiN hai rakh-shay umr kahan dekhiye thamay

nay haath baag per hai na paa hai rikaab meiN

Regards.

hobbyt #134
Why so defensive? Why concentrate on the messenger instead of the message?

Roohi #126

[...Please tell me that some of you across the border can find it in your heart to say ``this is wrong``....]

Not only is it wrong, those behind this should be treated as the murderers that they are. The evil of mullahism in Pakistan must be stamped out if Pakistanis and their neighbors are to live in peace.

Ref Inji-kari-kuzhambu #: 111

[I am sure what you say applies to a large majority. But then there are also a few of us who have trouble showing selective outrage at some goons spraying bullets on a bus full of civilians and other goons pulling civilians out of their homes and setting fire to them or slitting the bellies of pregnant women, WITH THE POLICE LOOKING THE OTHER WAY.

Sorry, the enemy number one are the sponsors of the latter set of goons.]

Oh, what sentiments from one whose entire life has been built on the equivalent of the Nazi persecution of the Jews of Europe!

Let us see what pathetic mufukkas like you have accomplished. The Vice-Chancellor of one university in Tamil Nadu graduated at the BOTTOM 5% of his graduating class. A friend who graduated at the TOP 5% and was a classmate of this idiot is at least 10 levels lower in the hierarchy of the university because he happens to be a brahmin whose forefathers, as you love to point out, denied water to that Vice Chancellor`s forefathers. The Port Trust is run by an idiot who got the equivalent of C`s in 5 subjects in Engineering. Obviously, you have to be the New Aryan to get ahead in Tamil Nadu. Or for that matter, in most places in India.

When you enter the district of Dharmapuri, you see signs saying that infanticide is a crime; with good reason, for Dharmapuri district has the highest rate of female infanticide, approximately 3000 a year. This in a state, where Father Big Man, The Great Intellectual and Doctor Artist Leader have been proclaiming equality of castes (but perhaps not of sexes, that may be the problem) and have led the ``Self-Respect Movement``. Where is the respect for FEMALE HUMAN LIFE, you mufukka?

Of course since you have been thrown crumbs in thew way of undeserved admission to professional colleges, you ignore the fact that Doctor Artist Leader and his nephew ``DrumBeat`` (Murasoli) Maran are ripping your state off blithely. The most recent scandal is where DrumBeat is grabbing state land worth a cool Rs. 1 billion.

Why are you outraged that some people got killed in distant Gujarat? Why aren`t you outraged at what is happening in your own backyard? Because you have been paid off, that is why! And as studies of cognitive dissonance have shown, the cheaper the payoff, the greater the loyalty to the ideology!

Continue along these lines for another 50 years and we can be sure of one thing: you guys won`t be able to organize a successful circle jerk.

Stop shedding tears for Gujarat, you Nazi a$$hole!

Sadna

I gave you an opportunity to instruct me, to allow me learn something from you - you wasted it needlessly - You are a rather sad and angry person and I hope you will not continue to be immature.

If it would please you, if it would make you less sad, less angry, to hear that I think I`m a hateful, defensive, bigot - here it is : I, hobbyty, am a hateful, dispicable, horrid, big, fat, pimply, puss filled, defensive, bigot.

Please use any further opportunities you may be afforded, more sensibly.

Gandhi`s dream dies hard in Gujarat

By Beth Duff-Brown

ASSOCIATED PRESS

http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020518-41869102.htm

AHMEDABAD, India ? Mohandas Gandhi`s wooden spinning wheel still stands among the simple throw pillows where he once sat cross-legged, threading cotton, receiving world leaders and promoting his vision of a unified, secular India.

Today, just beyond the whitewashed cottages of the independence leader`s ashram, across a dry riverbed where sacred cows graze under the searing subcontinent sun, Muslims and Hindus have turned on one another with a ferocity not seen in a decade.

The handful of elderly men who live among the lush gardens at Gandhi Ashram, or religious community, can see the smoke from burning homes and stores. Police sirens disturb their daily prayers.

The violence in Gujarat, Gandhi`s home state where he founded his ashram, has claimed more than 900 lives statewide in the last two months, mostly Muslims beaten or burned to death, or killed in police firing. Human rights activists say the death toll may come closer to 2,000 when one counts the missing in the western state.

Gandhi ? the man who led his people to independence from the British ? revered by his followers as mahatma or ``great soul,`` once wrote that ``Hindu-Muslim cooperation is our inevitable condition for Indian freedom,`` and several times he threatened to starve himself to shame his people into halting their feuds.

``Gandhi would have been very sad. He would have fasted to his death to stop all this,`` said Chunibhai Vaidya, an 84-year-old Gandhi disciple who lives at the ashram.

``But we have failed Gandhi, we have forgotten him, we have betrayed him.``

And yet, in many ways, the vision that Gandhi promoted until his assassination by a Hindu fanatic in 1948 is still alive.

A vibrant if sometimes messy democracy, a federal system and a constitution steeped in secular values allow India`s 120 million Muslims to live in relative peace among nearly 1 billion Hindus.

There are many more examples of harmony than hatred among those Hindus and Muslims who live side by side in thousands of villages throughout rural India and in its massive metropolises.

Muslims serve as judges and lawmakers. India`s richest man, Aziz Premji, chairman of the software giant Wipro is Muslim. Two of India`s presidents have been Muslims. One, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, was a Muslim from the northeastern state of Assam.

Assam, 30 percent of whose 26 million people are Muslim, is an example of the coexistence that is the norm for much of India. It is symbolized by the door on a Hindu temple in Guwahati, the capital, on which is a plaque commemorating Usman Ali, the Muslim who donated the land for the temple.

``We all believe that God is one. When Usman Ali donated the plot of land, I`m sure he had no idea of the significance of his gesture,`` said Manmohan Das, the Hindu secretary of the temple. ``Here, we are all living together in spite of the communal upsurge elsewhere in India.``

Most Muslims in India think of themselves as Indians first, Muslims second. Muslims and Hindus marry each other, go into business together, play together for India`s national cricket team.

India`s most popular movie stars are Muslims: Aamir Khan, whose colonial cricket epic ``Lagaan`` was nominated for an Academy Award this year, Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan. They`re known as the ``the Khan Brigade.``

Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan are married to Hindu women. And Hindu heartthrob Hrithik Roshan`s wife is Muslim.

When Virsing Rathod heard the screams of his Muslim neighbors being burned alive during the first night of the riots in Ahmedabad, the burly Hindu and his two sons jumped in a truck, rammed their way through a Hindu mob and began pulling Muslims from the flames. They saved 25 Muslims that night and sheltered dozens more in safe houses.

``I did it out of humanity, because in my heart I knew it was the right thing to do,`` said Mr. Rathod.

Across the country in Calcutta live Srabani Das, a Hindu, and her Muslim husband, Naseer Khan.

``Never for a moment in our nine years of married life was there any tension because of religion,`` said Mrs. Das.

``Naseer never asked me to change my religion. I still write my Hindu surname and he never interferes with my Hindu way of life,`` she said. ``We have friendly tiffs and we try to find the loopholes in each other`s religion and even cut jokes.``

Mrs. Das said their 7-year-old daughter, Karishma ? a neutral name that could be either Hindu or Muslim ? helps put things in perspective.

``Our daughter is the binding glue. She has a Muslim father, a Hindu mother and a Christian-English schooling,`` Mrs. Das said. ``I think when my daughter, Karishma, grows up, she will be a truly secular person.``

That sort of talk disgusts Hindu fundamentalist ``kar sevaks,`` religious volunteers who dedicate themselves to promoting Hindu purity and preventing Hindu-Muslim marriages or conversions.

``Everyone living in India is a Hindu,`` said K.C. Sudarshan, head of the hard-line National Volunteer Corps. ``It`s not a religion, but a way of life.``

The religious divide dates back to the Muslim Moguls who invaded in the eighth century. Independence was born in the blood of 1 million killed when the subcontinent was partitioned into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan in 1947. Frequent spasms of communal violence have followed, India and Pakistan have fought three wars and, now nuclear-armed, are spoiling for a fourth.